Friday, December 12, 2008

If someone were to write a list of things that become less effective the more you hand them out (and I invite you to), exclamation points might fall somewhere between emoticons and kisses/pretzels.

That's not to say that the moderate, thoughtful use of the mark (as demonstrated by my t-rex to the right. Will the "1" ever get old? Resoundingly no.) isn't acceptable, and I'm guilty of using the occasional smiley myself (though not in the way manifested during my stint as a Twilight apologist), but really, world. Tone it down.

I want to tell this to the agents I work for. When I make fliers for them, they hand me the text they want and I type it up and design it all nice. The text usually comes in the form of a bulleted list of a dozen or so selling points for the house. I usually correct misspellings as I go, assuming that nobody will mind. But when literally every single bullet ends with not one but THREE!!! exclamation points, where do I draw the line of responsibility to save face for the agents?

Were I in a position to buy a house and I looked at such a flier, I would put it down as soon as I noticed how poorly it was done, assuming the people who made it weren't smart enough to handle my transaction. However, I don't think there's a soul in the world who would refuse to buy a house BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T USE ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!